“I believe it is possible to end torture in my lifetime.”In 2000, Karen founded International Bridges to Justice to help create systemic change in criminal justice and promote basic rights of legal representation for defendants on the ground. Her foundation complements the work of witness groups, who do the equally vital work of advocacy, reports, photographs. Tse’s group helps governments build new systems that respect individual rights. In IBJ’s first years, she negotiated groundbreaking measures  in judicial reform with the Chinese, Vietnamese and Cambodian governments. It now works in sixteen countries, including Rwanda, Burundi and India.

International Bridges to Justice (IBJ) is a non-governmental organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. The organization’s stated mission is “to protect the basic legal rights of ordinary citizens in developing countries by guaranteeing all citizens the right to competent legal representation, the right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment, and the right to a fair trial”. IBJ has the additional stated goal “to end torture in this Century”

IBJ only works in countries whose international treaty obligations and national laws have already laid the legal framework for the protection of their citizens and where a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with the relevant government and legal authorities, setting out the parameters under which IBJ will work. It adopts a three pillar approach to accomplishing its aims:

Other articles/links/videos:
Documentary on her work in India and Cambodia (18 min/ French with English subtitles):

Karen Tse’s TED Talk: How to End Torture  (transcribed in over 30 languages)

Career: political theorist, author of bestseller ‘Jihad vs. McWorld’ and ‘If Mayors Ruled the World’; defender of “strong democracy”
Interests:  Theater, Opera and Film (active as playwright, lyricist and film-maker)
Hometown: living and working in New York City (where he was born in 1939)

Benjamin R. Barber burst into the media spotlight on 9/11 when his book Jihad Vs. McWorld, published in 1995, assumed newly horrific relevance. With his prophetic analysis of the emerging collision of tribalism and globalism, Barber established the parameters for 21st Century political debate.

Prof. Barber is a Senior Research Scholar at The Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society of The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, President and Founder of CivWorld/ the Interdependence Movement, and Walt Whitman Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Rutgers University and initiator of The Global Parliament of Mayors Project. He was an outside adviser to President Bill Clinton and a foreign policy adviser to Howard Dean’s 2004 Presidential campaign. Barber has advised political parties and political leaders in the U.K., Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland and Italy on civic education and participatory institutions, and has done the same, more controversially, with civil society and government leaders in Turkey, the Emirates, Libya and China.

Barber’s 17 books include Strong Democracy (1984), Jihad vs. McWorld (1995 translated into thirty languages), How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole, (2007), If Mayors Ruled the World (2013).
A passionate advocate of democracy’s power, Barber continues to explore solutions for dysfunctional systems and political paralysis.  Barber shows how decentralized local governments can be more flexible – and more in tune with their constituents – than their federal counterparts.

More:
http://benjaminbarber.org
Benjamin Barber on Wikipedia
Benjamin on Facebook and Twitter 
CivWorld
The Interdependence Movement
Global Parliament of Mayors on Facebook
If Mayors Ruled the World on Facebook
Benjamins books on Amazon

Other articles/videos:
TED Talk: Why mayors should rule the world (TEDGlobal 2013)
Richard Florida in CITY LAB: Why Mayors Need a UN-Like Organization of Their Own
The European: Nation states no longer work (03/2014)
Video: Opening of Global Parliament of Mayors Planning Session on 19 Sept. 2014
Video: Benjamin Barber at Falling Walls Conference in Berlin in 2013

Career: First Prime Minister of Tibetan Government in Exile. Eminent Buddhist Philosopher, Scientist and Politician. Counselor at World Peace University (USA) and at Institution for Asian Democracy (NYC) and many others. Close confident of HH the Dalai Lama.
Interests: Non-Violence,  Education, Present Generations, Social Change, Morality and Mental Development
Hometown: Born in Kham (today China), fled 1959, living in Dharamshala (India)

Professor Samdhong Rinpoche was born as Samdhong Lobsang Tenzin in 1939, in the Tibetan province of Kham. At age of five, he was recognized and enthroned as the reincarnation of the fourth Samdhong Rinpoche. He began his monastic studies at age 12 at the University of Drepung in Tibet and eventually obtained a Doctorate in Buddhist sciences at Gyutö Monastery, Dalhousie, India in 1970. In 1959, Rinpoche fled to India to escape the repressive Chinese government in Tibet. There, he was commissioned by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to serve as a teacher to monks in exile. He was appointed director of the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies in Varanasi in 1988 and remained there until 2001. On July 29, 2001, Rinpoche was named Kalön Tripa, or Prime Minister of the Tibetan Exile Government, the first political leader to be directly elected by the people in exile. He is an eminent and distinguished scholar, teacher and philosopher, and a life-long campaigner for Gandhian principles especially that of non-violence or peaceful resistance.

99Faces interviewed him in Berlin, Germany, after giving a lecture on ‘Tendrel – Mind and Reality” for students of the Tarab Institute International.

Tibet & Tibetan Parliament in Exile: The territory of Tibet is under the administration of and occupation by the People’s Republic of China, a situation that the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) considers an illegitimate military occupation. The position of the CTA is that Tibet is a distinct nation with a long history of independence. The position of the People’s Republic of China, however, is that the central government of China has continuously exercised sovereignty over Tibet for over 700 years, that Tibet has never been an independent state, and that Tibet’s de facto independence between 1912 and 1951 was “nothing but a fiction of the imperialists who committed aggression against China in modern history”. The current policy of the Dalai Lama is that he does not seek full independence for Tibet, but would accept Tibet as a genuine autonomous region within the People’s Republic of China.

More:

Biography Samdhong Rinpoche 

Book Review – UNCOMPROMISING TRUTH FOR A COMPROMISED WORLD: TIBETAN BUDDHISM AND TODAY’S WORLD

Tibet at a glance

A new generation Exile

Parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration

Samdhong Rinpoche on Facebook

Unity in Duality on Facebook

Video:

Concluding Session of 2010 ICTB with Keynote Address by Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche

Why meditate – Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche

Unity in Duality – An introduction, Part 1

Liu Olin – Breaking the Wall of Global Debt @Falling Walls 2011 from Falling Walls on Vimeo.

Career: Artist, Writer, Photographer, Book & Exhibition “DIGNITY” for Amnesty International’s 50th anniversary
Interests: Indigenous People, Tribes, Human Rights
Hometown: Los Angeles (CA), USA

Dana Gluckstein is a celebrated, award-winning photographer whose work has appeared in countless campaigns, newspapers & magazines. Gluckstein graduated from Stanford University, where she studied psychology, painting & photography.In her 30-year career, she has captured cultural luminaries from Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev to Muhammad Ali, but perhaps her most important work has been her personal mission, photographing indigenous communities around the globe- a work collected in the book, Dignity: In Honor of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Her portraits are held in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles Countys Museum of Art and Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Dignity: In Honour of The Rights of Indigenous People honors Indigenous Peoples worldwide and celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Amnesty International, the Nobel Prize-winning human rights organization. Gluckstein, whether photographing a Haitian healer or a San Bushman elder, succeeds in distilling the universality of experience that links us all without diminishing the dignity of the individual. Dignity includes more than 90 of Gluckstein´s  black-and-white duotone portraits, made over three decades. The photographs express the theme of tribes in transition by capturing the fleeting period of world history where traditional and contemporary cultures collide.

Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 3 million supporters, members and activists in more than 150 countries and territories who campaign to end grave abuses of human rights. Amnesty started campaigning in 1961, and has worked around the globe to stop the abuse of human rights. Currently, they have more than 2.2 million members, supporters and subscribers in over 150 countries and territories, in every region of the world. Their vision is for every person to enjoy all the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights standards. They  are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion and are funded mainly by our membership and public donations. In the context that U.S. government along with Canada (only two countries in U.N.) have not accepted the Declaration, there is a petition through Amnesty International for the adoption of the declaration.

The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the General Assembly in September 2007. The Declaration is the most comprehensive statement of the rights of indigenous peoples ever developed, giving prominence to collective rights to a degree unprecedented in international human rights law. It is a culmination of over twenty years of work, that began in earnest at the Working Group which began the drafting of the declaration in 1985. The first draft was completed in 1993, and in 1995, the Commission on Human Rights set up its own working group to review the draft adopted by the human rights experts of the Working Group and the Sub-Commission. More than 100 indigenous organizations participated in the Working Group of the Commission annually.

More:
www.danagluckstein.com
www.amnesty.org
www.un.org

Dignity on
Facebook: http://en-gb.facebook.com/dignitybook
Twitter: @DIGNITYbook

Other articles/links/videos:
Culture/Movies-TV-Music-Books/True-Grace" target="_blank">Elle: True Grace (2010/11)
Planet-mag: dignity-dana-gluckstein (2010/10)
Huffington Post: International Day of  Indigenous Peoples: Are We Listening To Their Wisdom? (2010/08)
The Daily Beast: Portraits From the Corner of the Earth.

Video: Desmond Tutu and Hugh Maskela unite for Dignity
Video: Dana Gluckstein Interview Part 1

Career: Founder & President University of the People (UoPeople)
Chairman of Cramster, Kidum Group and Laureate KIT eLearning
Interests: Running, Working, World Affairs & News
Hometown: Pasadena (CA), USA

Shai Reshef is an educational entrepreneur and has twenty years of experience in the international education market. From 1989-2005, he served as Chairman of the Kidum Group, a for-profit educational services company, sold to Kaplan, Inc. in 2005. While chairman of Kidum, Reshef lived in the Netherlands (2001-2004) where he chaired KIT eLearning, the eLearning partner of the University of Liverpool and the first online university outside the US. In 2009 he founded University of the People (UoPeople).

More:
www.uopeople.org
Twitter: @UoPeople
Facebook: www.facebook.com/UoPeople

Shai Reshef on
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shai_Reshef
LinkedIN: http://www.linkedin.com/in/shaireshef
Facebook: facebook.com/shai.reshef

Other articles/links/videos:
The New York Times: Israeli Entrepreneur Plans a Free Global University That WIll Be Online Only (2009/01)
Video: DLD Conference 2009

Career: Curator & Host INK Conference (formerly TED India), Founder & CEO Ixoraa Media, Founder Digital Equalizer Program, Partner at Global Catalyst Partners
Interests: Collecting People, Human Spirit, Matching Indo and U.S Business
Hometown: Milpitas (CA), USA; New Delhi, India

Lakshmi Pratury is Founder and CEO of Ixoraa Media whose mission is to strengthen ties between the US and India through corporate, cultural, and media events. As a social entrepreneur, Lakshmi was a leading force at the American India Foundation (AIF), that raised over $30M in five years to channel towards development activities in India. She also started ‘Schools Online India’ (later ‘Digital Equalizer’) where she brought internet access to underprivileged children. Earlier, she was partner at Global Catalyst Partners (GCP) and was the first to turn the VC firm’s attention onto India. Lakshmi was co-host of the first ever TED conference in Asia – the TEDIndia. She continues sharing untold stories with the annual INK Conference, in association with TED.

The Ink Conference is an annual conference that aims to fuel innovation and foster knowledge by bringing together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers from a range of disciplines such as art, architecture, dance, design, music, science, social entrepreneurship, sports and technology. The first INK was in December 2010 in Delhi and will be featured annually.

Ixoraa Media is dedicated to bringing together extraordinary talent across generations and disciplines to focus on shaping the thinking, policy, and progress in the Indo–U.S. corridor. Ixoraa Media bandwidth ranges from technology projects with the private office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to music concerts. Ixora Media was host of TEDIndia, which attracted a global audience and featured thought leaders from India. Currently it is hosting The INK Conference in association with TED.

More:
www.theinkconference.com
www.ted.com
www.ixoraamedia.com

The INK Conference on Facebook
TED on Facebook
Twitter: @TEDTalks

Lakshmi on LinkedIn
Twitter: @LakshmiPratury
Lakshmi on Facebook

Other articles/links/videos:
Videos talks from INK Conference – The INKTalks: www.inktalks.com
Your Story: Lakshmi Pratury on INK conference: “We want to showcase innovation of thought” (10/2010)
Blogadda: Interview with Lakshmi Pratury (2010)

Short intro to The Ink Conference:

Career: Head of Marketing, The Global Fund
Interests: Travel, Social Change, Cross Country Skiing Marathon
Hometown: Mexican living in Geneva, Switzerland

Claudia Gonzalez is Head of Marketing of The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, where she manages the Born HIV Free campaign that aims to eliminate the transmission of HIV from mother to children by 2015.
One of the world’s most acknowledge non-profit marketers having had top position in United Nations Refugee Agency and the World Economic Forum, she is a strategist with 15 year experience in integrated communications specialized in social media, celebrities and branding.
Claudia was previously a Diplomat for her home country Mexico and was a press correspondent for a number of years in different countries. Her academic background includes a Masters from LSE on Media and Communications. She speaks 6 languages, has two kids, enjoys sports, travel and social change.

The Global Fund was established in January 2002 to dramatically increase global financing for interventions against  AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. It is the largest international funder of programs to combat malaria and tuberculosis, providing two-thirds of all financing, and provides 20% of all international funding to combat HIV/AIDS. The Fund asserts that as of June 2007, 1.9 million lives have been saved thanks to efforts in 136 countries supported by the Global Fund.

UNHCR: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, established 1950, also known as The UN Refugee Agencyis a United Nations agency mandated to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself and assists in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to a third country. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. The UNHCR has won two Nobel Peace Prizes.

More:
www.theglobalfund.org
www.unhcr.org
Twitter: @refugees
www.bornhivfree.org
www.joinred.com

Other articles/links/videos:
Video & Interview: DLD Conference 2010
Article: Press Release about AIDS campaign
Article: Arstechnica – Google Earth takes you inside Refugee-Camps

Short intro to The Global Fund:

Career: Film Director and Producer (i.e.”Elizabeth”, “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”, “Bandit Queen”) but simply calls himself “Adventurer”
Interests: Water, Nature, Social Business, Humanity, Future of our Planet
Hometown: Mumbai, India; born Lahore, British India (nowadays Pakistan);lived many years in New York City, USA

Shekhar Kapur, born 6 December 1945 in British India (in an area which became part of Pakistan) is a renowned filmmaker from India. His works include Elizabeth (1998), a semi-historical account of the early reign of Queen Elizabeth I; it was nominated for 8 Oscars. In 2000, he was awarded the Padma Shri. Some scenes of the movie Joshilaay (1989) which starred Sunny Deol, Anil Kapoor, Sridevi and Meenakshi Sheshadari were directed by Kapur. He was accused of being Anti-British by British tabloids, by the way he portrayed the British Army and the Empire in the movie The Four Feathers. Kapur also executive produced the Hollywood film The Guru and Bollywood-themed Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Bombay Dreams, which has been running in the West End, London since 2002, and on Broadway in New York City since 2004. Projects include Long Walk to Freedom, Water, The Last Full Measure, and Golden Age, a sequel to Elizabeth.

In June 2005, Kapur and his friend, guru Deepak Chopra launched a discussion blog with a select group of their friends and family. The purpose of the blog is to promote original discussion by voices from South Asia, and especially India. Kapur posts regularly on the blog, often writing short personal poems. Shortly after, Kapur also started his own personal blog on his official website. In January 2006, it was reported that Kapur and Chopra would be collaborating with Richard Branson on a Bangalore-based animated film company.

His most recent projekt is PAANI (which means ‘water’ in Hindu) which aims to ring the alarm bell for the global water crisis. In November 2010, when the above interview was taped, Shekhar Kapur signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Grameen Creative Lab to create an investment fund for water-related social businesses in India. Being passionate about water-related issues he will act as ambassador for the fund. Kapur signed the MOU together with Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Grameen Bank Prof. Muhammad Yunus.

More:
www.shekharkapur.com
Shekhar on Facebook

Wikipedia: Movie “Elizabeth”
YouTube: Tailer of “Elizabeth”

Wikipedia: “Elizabeth – The Golden Age”
YouTube: Tailer of “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”

Other articles/links/videos:
YouTube: Business of Cinema: Shekhar Kapur raises alarm bell for water conservation (10/2010)
Global water crisis gets Bollywood Sci-Fi treatment
Realbollywood News Shekhar Kapur rings the alarm bell for water conservation (09/2010)
DNA: The water divide, Shekhar Kapur’s magnificent obsession (05/2010)
Indian Express: Shekhar Kapur’s ‘Paani’ to seek solution for water shortage (05/2010)
YouTube: I’m not a professional filmmaker: Shekhar Kapoor (07/2010)
Vimeo: Paolo Coelho: Social Business – An issue close to society’s heart?

Career: CEO and Founding Member of Grameen Creative Lab
Interests: Social Business, Politics, Dance
Hometowns: Frankfurt, Germany

Saskia Bruysten is CEO and Strategic Director of The Grameen Creative Lab GmbH (GCL). She was one of the founding members of the GCL, along with Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. Previously she worked at The Boston Consulting Group as a senior consultant (Munich and New York). She completed her Bachelor and MBA at the European Business School (ebs), and went on to graduate with a distinction, MSc in Theory and History of International Relations from the London School of Economics. Saskia comes from a German / Canadian background, and has studied in the USA and Argentina.

The Grameen Creative Lab (GCL) was founded at the end of 2008 by Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus. Its goal is to fight poverty through the spread of the model of social business. A social business is a non-loss, non-dividend company aimed at achieving a social goal. As such, it exists only for the purpose of solving a social problem, such as hunger, disease, etc. It addresses this issue very much like a conventional business would. However, the social business can make money, but investors don’t take money out of it. Profits get reinvested to further the social goal. The GCL undertakes two main activities; 1. Creating awareness to social business through events; 2. Providing consulting services to companies, entrepreneurs and organizations interested in founding a social business.

The GCL has consulted or is in the process of consulting and partnering with the following companies, universities, governments and organisations: BASF, Otto Group, SAP, adidas Group; EBS University, Kyushu University, McGill University, Istituto Europeo di Design, Finance University of Moscow; Government of Caldas, Colombia, Government of Albania, City of Wiesbaden; World Economic Forum, Clinton Global Initiative, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs, Sing for Hope, Erste Stiftung. Additionally, the Grameen Creative Lab has initiated the setup of social business funds in Mumbai and Haiti.

More:
www.grameencreativelab.com
GCL Facebook
GCL on Twitter
GCL on Vimeo

Twitter: @saskiabruysten

Wikipedia: Social Business
Wikipedia: Muhammad Yunus
Yunus Center
Grameen Bank

Other articles/links/videos:
TruthDive.com: Mohammad Yunus and Social Business. Poor people are more socially conscious and honest.
Fora.tv: Muhammad Yunus – The Social Business Model
YouTube: Microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus speaks at the University of Virginia
Book by Muhammad Yunus: Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs
Book by Muhammad Yunus: Creating a world without poverty

Short intro to Grameen Creative Lab: